DETROIT _ A Kalamazoo, Mich., Uber driver accused of killing six people and wounding two others last month told police that the ride-sharing app took over his "mind and body" and made him carry out the rampage.
In a series of interviews with police in the hours after the Feb. 20 shootings, Jason Dalton, 45, confessed to the killings, but blamed it on the Uber app, stating his smartphone directed him where to go and when to shoot people. Dalton said he would have gotten in a shootout with police when he was arrested but the app directed him not to.
Dalton told police that earlier that Saturday when he opened up the Uber taxi app, a symbol, which he believed was the Eastern Star popped up. Dalton said the symbol resembled a devil's head and "that's when all the problems started."
"Dalton described the devil figure as a horned cow head or something like that and then it would give you an assignment and it would literally take over your whole body," according to police reports released Monday to the Detroit Free Press by the Kalamazoo City Attorney's Office.
Dalton told police he experienced "a full body takeover" and expressed concern for being placed in the general population at the jail because of what he did.
"I asked Dalton what made him get his gun tonight and he said the Uber app made him," the report states.
Dalton also said the Uber app made him put on a bulletproof vest. Dalton said he purchased the vest for his son, who is an "Explorer (scout) with the county."
" ... And Dalton told us that literally when he logged onto the site (Referring to the Uber app) it started making him be like a puppet," the report states.
Dalton told police that when the Uber app turns from "red to black that is when he started having problems." He told the detectives that when he was about to be arrested that night by police, he would have potentially "tried to have a shootout with the police" but the log went from the black symbol back to red and that's when he "stopped his thought."
Dalton said when the system switched from black to red, he "got his presence back."
Dalton claimed he couldn't remember much of the shootings because he wasn't in control of his body.
"Dalton then told us that it feels like it is coming from the phone itself and he didn't know how to describe that," the report states. " ... Dalton said that as he was sitting there with us, it was almost like artificial intelligence that can tap into your body."
Dalton said it was scary to him that he wasn't sure how much he had done.
"Dalton said it would take you over to the point that you are like a puppet," the report said. "Dalton said that he was afraid that maybe he could've killed his family."
Before the detectives began to interview him, he was overheard whispering in the room by himself saying sorry, "my love."
In other documents released by Kalamazoo authorities Monday, Dalton told his wife he was in a spat with a jealous taxi driver.
Dalton stopped at his parents' home after the first of three Feb. 20 shootings, parking a damaged Chevrolet Equinox in the garage. Police say the car was damaged as he fled the scene after shooting a woman several times in the Meadows apartment complex. When he arrived at the home to switch cars before allegedly continuing the shooting spree, Dalton explained to his wife that he'd been shot at earlier in the day by a maroon Impala that sideswiped him, according to the reports from the Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Department.
Dalton told her "he was nearly run off the road last week by this same vehicle, which he believed was owned by an angry taxi driver, upset that Jason was now driving for Uber and taking away his business," according to her statements in the reports.
The wife told investigators she "did not really believe" Jason's story because he wouldn't look her in the eye, "even when she purposely stepped directly in front of him," according to the report.
At the time of the first shooting, Dalton's wife told investigators she thought he was at a dog park with Mia, the family's black German shepherd. After the exchange in the garage, he went upstairs in the parents' home and retrieved a Taurus 9mm pistol, handing it to her. Dalton told his wife it wouldn't be safe to be at their home without a gun.
"(Dalton) told her he would try to stop at their house ... and grab some things for them, but that she couldn't go back to work anymore, and the kids could not go back to school," according to the report.
The wife asked what he was talking about, and Dalton responded that she would find out "on the news," but that it probably wouldn't include his name. He then left the house in the Chevrolet HHR she'd been driving, telling her he was going to stop at the ATM and get a couple hundred dollars out.
Dalton is charged with six counts of open murder and two counts of assault with intent to murder. He also is charged with eight counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. If convicted on all charges he faces a mandatory life sentence in prison without parole. Michigan does not have a death penalty.
A judge has ordered a mental examination for Dalton, who moonlighted as an Uber driver, to determine his state now, not when the shootings took place, according to Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting.
Getting said the request came from defense attorney Eusebio Solis of Albion, who was appointed to represent Dalton. Getting said the evaluation is likely to take up to 60 days and will delay a preliminary examination scheduled for March 10.
Police and prosecutors have said Dalton shot the eight people at three different locations in Kalamazoo County and the City of Kalamazoo on Feb. 20.
Tiana Carruthers, 25, was the first victim, shot in the parking lot of an apartment complex, the Meadows Township in Richland Township.
Richard Smith, 53, and his 17-year-old son, Tyler, of Mattawan were killed while they looked at cars at Seeley Kia of Kalamazoo. Then five people were shot, four of them fatally, in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel in Texas Township, just west of Kalamazoo.
Three of the women killed, Mary Jo Nye, 60, Barbara Hawthorn, 68, and Judy Brown, 74, were from Battle Creek. Mary Nye, 62, of Baroda, Mary Jo Nye's sister-in-law, also was shot and killed. A 14-year-old girl, Abigail Kopf, was shot once in the head and remains in fair condition at Bronson Methodist Hospital.